Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Jordan

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This about 3 weeks lasting journey was a absolute blast.

Especially Jerusalem is a fascinating, inspiring and enriching city. Its not only the Origin of all three big world religions, it´s full of culture and history and one crux of the Israelian and Palestinian conflict.

The old city seems to be the biggest bazar in the world. Certainly lots of tourists but also wonderful and friendly people no matter if muslim, jewish or greek orthodox. The small wonderful alleys were most of the time crowded. But not at about 7pm - the time of "ftur", the fasting breaking during ramadan because then you experience swept and extinct streets - really nobody visible, expect some cats which are everywhere in jerusalem. It´s such a quite and peaceful half an hour, before night turns into day and everything is open till early in the morning.

Mosques, churches and synagogues so extremly close to each other. You here the muezzin calling the muslims to the daily prayer. And while you are in Jerusalems landmark - the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City you hear quite often the bell-sound of nearby churches which is absolutely touching.

To get in and out to the, by a huge 9,25m wall surrounded, palestinian territories could sometimes be a bit annoying and exhausting. But the taff palestinian habitants are used to it and just say "Thats the way it is and nobody breaks us!".

It was the longest entry I ever had to cross the border from Jordan to Jerusalem. It took us about 6 hours and was so unbelievable tiring. But at the end we werent classified as a threat for Israel and made it.
The way out, back to Jordan was somehow coming home and felt like a real joke cause it just took us just a couple of minutes 😊
And ... no armed soldiers and police anymore. One of the main problems of jerusalem was the ubiquitous police and army presence. You feel uncomfordable and somehow threatened all time.

Back in Jordan

After all my travels I must confess that Jordan is one of my favorite spots. And not only because its one of the versatilest countries in the world. It´s more the people. I never experienced so many friendly, open-hearted, warm and welcoming people.

Why so versatile?

Because there is so

much to see! We enjoyed Jordans
... Read Sea in Aqaba, which is just beautiful. Innumerable untouched coral reefs. perfect for diving and snorkeling,
... Dead Sea, where you could just float for hours over the water surface,
... Wadi Rum, where you experience real desert, if you are curious also by night, what we did,
... Petra, the red city of the nabatean. One of the recently elected New Seven Wonders of the world,
... North with many well-preserved roman sites like Jerrash, Pella or Um-Qays
... ancient castles, which are unbelievable well-preserved too
... and last but not least Amman the capitol of Jordan which closes the gap between
antiquity and modern and somehow unite both at the same time.

Jordan is always worth a journey and I recommend it not only because parts of my family live here 😊

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Photos

jerrash